A Wheat Ridge Democrat who had been a reliable vote to curb the state’s business personal-property tax surprised Republicans on Thursday when she voted against a bill to slowly phase out the tax on new-equipment purchases.

Sen. Cheri Jahn said the state budget is too uncertain and too volatile to support a bill that could result in less money for education.

Republicans were counting on Jahn’s vote to get Senate Bill 26 out of committee, but the measure died on a 3-4 party-line vote.

“It’s an egregious tax, but I’m not willing to make this jobs vs. education,” Jahn said, adding that she can’t “whack” education because it is key to economic development.

Other Democrats echoed her concern.

The business personal-property tax is a lifetime tax levied on the assessed value of equipment used by businesses, ranging from multimillion-dollar electrical-plant items to desks and computers.

Sen. Mark Scheffel, R-Parker, said he thought his bill would be palatable because it affects only new equipment bought after 2013. Counties with power plants and railroads that rely heavily on the tax would continue to receive the revenues they already are collecting.

Opponents argued that the lost tax collection would harm local governments and school districts. By law, the state has to backfill schools when local revenues drop — no easy feat with Colorado in a budget crisis.

Already this week, Gov. John Hickenlooper proposed closing the budget shortfall by cutting K-12 education by $332 million in the current year.

Scheffel has made it his mission to do something about the business personal-property tax since he came to the Senate in 2009, but his efforts have encountered the same fate as his predecessor’s. The bills to eliminate or phase out the tax have died no matter which party is in power.

” ‘It’s too big.’ I hear that all the time,” he said. ” ‘Mark, great effort, but it’s too complicated, it’s too big, can’t do it.’ ‘Let’s study it some more.’ ‘I’m with you. You’ve got my vote when you come up with a super-magic silver-bullet solution.’

“I don’t know what that is.”

So far, few suggestions have been made for how local governments would make up the loss of the tax.

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